Morgan Freeman to Host New National Geographic Show Exploring Story of God in Culture

Freeman has received Academy Award nominations for his performances in Street Smart, Driving Miss Daisy, The Shawshank Redemption and Invictus, and won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 2005 for Million Dollar Baby. AP Photo

Academy-Award winning actor Morgan Freeman will host a new show on National Geographic that explores the story of God in culture and promises to "spur meaningful conversations about God and faith, by believers and nonbelievers alike."

According to Variety, Freeman will visit a variety of religiously significant locations across the globe and learn about rituals from cultures around the world. He will also reportedly become a "test subject in scientific labs to examine how the frontiers of neuroscience and cosmology are intersecting the traditional domain of religion."

Some of the locations the "Shawshank Redemption" actor will visit in the show, titled "The Story of God," include the Vatican, Stonehenge, and Lakewood megachurch, which is pastored by Joel Osteen.

"The story of God is one of the greatest mysteries and most important ideas in the world," the 78-year-old actor told Variety. "For me, this is a personal and enduring quest to understand the divine, and I am humbled by the opportunity to take viewers along on this incredible journey."

The series, which will air in 171 countries and 45 languages sometime in 2016, will also include Freeman's own opinions on God, as he shares his personal observations from the "back of a taxi leaving the Vatican or hiking through the Guatemalan jungle on the way to an abandoned Mayan temple."

"God is arguably the most important topic of our time," said Lori McCreary, Freeman's producing partner at Revelations Entertainment and an executive producer on the series. "National Geographic's unprecedented inside access will allow us to explore the global mystery behind God and religion. With Morgan as our storyteller, we're going to produce a visually stunning and thought-provoking series that will spur meaningful conversations about God and faith, by believers and nonbelievers alike."

In the past, Freeman has expressed skeptical views on religion, telling The Wrap that he believe there is an omnipresent creator watching over the Earth, but rather God was created by man, The Blaze reports.

"Well, here's a scientific question: Has anybody ever seen hard evidence? What we get is theories from our earlier prophets," he said. "Now, people who think that God invented us think that the Earth can't be more than 6,000 years old. So I guess it's a question of belief. My belief system doesn't support a creator as such, as we can call God, who created us in His/Her/Its image."

Freeman, who played God in the Hollywood comedies "Bruce Almighty" and the sequel "Evan Almighty," added that it was "hard" to say whether he was an atheist or agnostic because he thinks "we invented God."

"So if I believe in God, and I do, it's because I think I'm God," he said.